El Litoral is a cultural mosaic representing Puerto Rican people and culture through a spiritual realm where the past intersects with the present. In Puerto Rico, El Litoral means those open spaces where we connect with each other.
As a historian and economist, Alvilda Sophia Anaya-Alegria, has investigated and addressed the context of Mr. Pynchon’s legacy in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and the rest of the Antilles. Pynchon’s plantation in Springfield, was supplemented by the labor and goods from the Caribbean. The project integrates this history and notion of ancestry, as a metaphor: demonstrating what Boricuas have contributed to Springfield even before we migrated to this land. As a storyteller and multimedia artist, Michelle Falcón Fontánez has created the narrative between the concrete and the spiritual.
Photography From The Series
Public Art Installation
El Litoral’s main design is a fusion of Puerto Rican portraits both in photography and oil painting. The mosaic’s spiritual realm includes our Taína-African ancestra birthing the same power and strength of La Ceiba Puerto Rican tree (Tree of Life since Mesoamerica), painted by Alvilda. Photographer Michelle Falcón Fontánez has brought to life the traditional African ritual of bomba connecting with the spiritual portals.
The two women, embodied by artists Gloria Agosto and Jaritza Torres, are calling our ancestras asking for guidance and blessings as they dance. The Taína-African ancestra is omnipresent watching over the women as she blesses them with her infinite power. The four women are El Litoral, representing our econature: fuego, oceans, tierra, winds y flores. The merging of these two art forms symbolize the different realms, and how our histories on the island and in Springfield form into one: living in multiple dimensions simultaneously.
Get Connected
To support the co-artist Alvilda contact them at
Alvilda Sophia Anaya-Alegria
Historian | Economist | Urban Artist
@GaleriaLAlvilda | alvilda.anaya@gmail.com
Thank You
Michelle collaborated with local artists including Gloria Agosto and Jaritza Torres. Alvilda collaborated with Joalvin Rivera, Jonencia Wood, and her grandchildren born in Springfield: Stefan J. Billups Rivera, Chandra Green Rivera, Jonen-Marie Wood Rivera, and Isabella A. Correa Rivera. Photographer of La Ceiba | Stephen Petegorsky.
